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Western self-righteousness, the last hoorah?

As I continue to watch the slo-mo train wreck that is Brexit and the associated machinations in the UK’s House of Commons, I can’t help but fondly remember our dear old friend Prince Ucchi of Nigeria. C’mon, you remember the Prince? That jolly good egg who would periodically send out a letter informing you that his government had been fortunate enough to be granted $100 million (typically from a UN-backed organization like the WHO) and that with your cooperation (the provision of some fictitious invoices and your bank details) you could each carry off huge wads of syphoned off cash. Too good to be true? Of course, it was, as was the ubiquitous Prince Ucchi.

In all probability, Prince Ucchi was actually a fawny haired little scamster sitting somewhere in the US or Europe. However, we in the West have been conditioned to believe that such mendacious offers could only genuinely come from the third world, ‘tin pot’ dictators or their cronies. For the longest time, third world leaders have been stigmatized by the past behaviour of Robert Mugabe, Sani Abacha, Mohamed Suharto and the like. However, that misplaced arrogance is gradually ebbing away. Recent events (both in the UK and US) have exposed the deep cracks in the self-superior façade of the western establishment. Politicians and business leaders here no longer have an undisputed ascendancy over their new world peers. It turns out their Asian, African or Latin brethren don’t have a monopoly on ineptitude or corruptibility after all.

Pirates of Little England & The Legend of the Ghost Ship: Chris Grayling, the current Secretary of State for Transport, seems to have a penchant for attracting bad press. In his latest misadventure, he awarded a £14 million contract to shipping company Seabourne Freight to establish a backup cargo facility in preparation for potential post-Brexit chaos. Sounds like a plan Batman. Except Seabourne has not a single ship, has never operated a cross Channel route and had a total of just £67 in the bank at the time of the award. The companies published terms and conditions, it transpires, were lifted from those of a fast food delivery company. Questions around the governments due diligence process notwithstanding, at least we’ll get pizza.

The shipping scandal follows a series of questionable acts, mostly related to the UK’s impending exit from the EU. In the 2017 General Election, Theresa May gifted the Irish Democratic Unionist Party £1.5 billion to form a coalition (while austerity measures continued to ravage the public sector). In December 2018, PM May openly sought to stave off a Brexiteer’s revolt against her much beleaguered EU Withdrawal Agreement by squeezing several rebel rousers into the Queen’s Honours List.

Many questions whether the Brexit campaign itself, backed by some of the wealthiest people in the UK, is really motivated by new EU tax avoidance legislation rather than the desire to “take back control”. If yes, this would be nothing short of criminal. Indeed, it turns out that David Davis MP (former Brexit Minister) is on the payroll of one of the campaign sponsors. I also find it surprising that Jacob Rees Mogg, a serving MP and lead Brexiteer, who most certainly has access to non-public information regarding the negotiations, is allowed to be a director of a fund management firm.

Away from Brexit, it emerged this week that former Mayor of London and another Leave campaigner (just can’t shake this connection), Boris Johnson, spent £53 million of public funds on a much-vaunted Garden Bridge across the Thames. Yet to date not a single brick has been laid. I’m losing count of all the skeletons falling out.

Way back in 2009, widespread abuse of Parliamentary expense allowances aroused huge public anger. The thing I couldn’t understand at the time was why politicians would risk their reputations over such minuscule amounts (one MP was famously caught out making an illegitimate claim for a duck house installation in his garden)? In fact, so pathetic where the general level of false claims that I suggested to one MP that he and his colleagues outsource their expenses claims management to politicians in India, who seemed to be much more adept at bleeding the system. After all, if you’re gonna go, go big!

There I go though, stereotyping Indians as the expert racketeers but who institutionalised the ‘bakshish’ system in the first place? Johnny English of course.

Journalist M.B. Lal wrote in the Hindu (Sept. 2011), “in 1943 so far as the British were concerned, bribery was not a problem at all…it enabled the government to keep its employees contented with small salaries and run the administration on a low budget while allowing employees to help themselves with extra pickings”. It was this system of endemic pilfering and bribery that allowed the likes of Maj. Gen. Robert Clive to enrich themselves by gradually stripping India of its wealth (the British drained an estimated $45 trillion over 173 years per economist Utsa Patnaik). Moreover, as the Empire broke up, tax havens were established so that the returning bureaucrats of the Raj would have somewhere to squirrel away their ill-gotten gains. Those havens continue to be used today, despite widespread calls for their abolishment. In fact, former PM David Cameron, whose own name figured in the Panama Papers revelations, pointedly refused to engage on the issue of offshore tax evasion. Quelle surprise.

“The self-righteous scream judgments against others to hide the noise of skeletons dancing in their own closets” (John Mark Green). Incompetence or corruption, it’s time to open our eyes in the west and recognize that our politics and politicians are just as broken as those of any other nation at which we may care to point a crooked accusatory finger. The false comfort I drew from the unambitious expense claims that the MPs were making turned out to be a red herring. It’s obvious now that the real games were being played far more surreptitiously.

If anything, the last two years have laid bare the true intentions of the UK elite. Much like the elite anywhere else in the world, their priority is to protect their own personal interests, at any cost. Brexit is not about taking back control of sovereignty but really about keeping control of the money. Bringing power back to Whitehall so that the richest 1% and their cronies can ensure that any legislation is enacted only with their approval. As such, I would question Britain’s virtuous 11th place position in the global Corruption Perceptions Index and it’s about time a Google search on “most corrupt world leaders” included some names closer to home.

Brexit – too good to be true? I’d say so. Come back Prince Ucchi, all is forgiven.

Author

Arup has spent 27 years in the global banking sector and currently sits on the boards of several companies in the tech and finance space. Arup has been a guest columnist for various finance journals including the Times of India and the Economic Times. Arup is also an Academy Member of the Global Teacher Prize. Arup was raised and educated in both the UK and India. He lives in London with his wife and three sons.

Arup has spent 27 years in the global banking sector and currently sits on the boards of several companies in the tech and finance space. Arup has been a gu. . .

Author

Arup has spent 27 years in the global banking sector and currently sits on the boards of several companies in the tech and finance space. Arup has been a guest columnist for various finance journals including the Times of India and the Economic Times. Arup is also an Academy Member of the Global Teacher Prize. Arup was raised and educated in both the UK and India. He lives in London with his wife and three sons.

Arup has spent 27 years in the global banking sector and currently sits on the boards of several companies in the tech and finance space. Arup has been a gu. . .